Optimized Twenty-One Color Panel Design Using The ZE5 Cell Analyzer For Quantification Of T Cell Subsets In Stem Cell Transplant Patients

By Karl Staser, MD, PhD, John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, William Eades, Angela Goldfain, and Nathan Trujillo, PhD

Introduction
Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) remains the most effective treatment for patients with high risk and relapsed hematologic malignancies. When donor T cells recognize the host as foreign, they induce an immune response against the host and may cause life-threatening graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), a major complication of allo-HSCT. Monitoring T cell subsets pre- and post- transplantation in correlation with patient outcomes may identify the key cell types mediating engraftment, relapse, GvHD, and drug response. Because there are numerous T cell subset populations, many of which are rare, increasing the types that can be detected simultaneously can provide an advantage in unbiased tracking and quantification.